The particular neckbeardy, fedora wearing, Sam Harris listening trend of atheism was a pretty clear reaction to the evangelical psychosis of the Bush administration.
Other geriatrics here can attest that the character of Christianity at the time was way different than it is now. These days, the fascists are more “culturally Christian” and avoid overt bible apologism. But back in the day, these people were constantly on TV spewing young earth creationism and other shit, and they were largely taken seriously. It’s hard to believe now how much time was spent “debating” evolution back then. The atheist backlash at least affected discourse aesthetically for some time, making these views laughable, which deplatformed a lot of evangelicals or made them hide their power levels on TV.
Some argue that this brand of atheism justifies imperialism. It does so really only in theory. There really is no material basis for atheists in the US to justify an invasion anywhere in the world. The truth is that Christianity is still a far more powerful force for imperialism. Bush said that God told him to invade Iraq. I don’t see any president saying anytime soon that the US needs to secularize a country through force.
If fundamentalist and political religiosity were defeated, then belligerent atheism would dissolve, but the reverse is not true.
Overall, it really does seem like people over emphasize this group of internet no-lifers because of the cultural cringe they manifested.
Nu-atheism always had a white chauvinism element to it, which was why it was so quickly weaponized to serve Islamophobic ends. Their whole understanding of history is that humans were enslaved by superstition and religion until a certain group of humans (ie white people) realized that superstitions and God aren’t real. Their partial freedom from the God delusion lead to a flourishing of human thought and achievement, first realized as the Enlightenment, which then lead to them ushering forth the Industrial Revolution upon which their thriving societies are built on. The rest of humanity is stuck as backwards people living in mud huts thinking praying to the rain god would give them rain because they’re still enslaved by superstition and God, so it is the duty of the atheists of the secular world to free the rest of humanity from the darkness of God.
This is just typical missionary white chauvinist bullshit. It’s no wonder they would eventually “find God” again once it became more in vogue to embrace religion. Perhaps the rise of China has something to do with it. Once a non-European country ruled by an atheist ideology begins to rise, suddenly “atheism is the key to human progress and civilization” begins to lose its luster.
This makes a lot of sense.
I always wondered why so many of these dudes who would openly mock religion took such a hard right turn and became alt right christo fascists themselves. Really weirded me out.
Perhaps the rise of China has something to do with it. Once a non-European country ruled by an atheist ideology begins to rise
from this one would locate the catalyst for pop atheism in the 2000s being the fall of the soviet union :thinkin-lenin:
The rest of humanity is stuck as backwards people living in mud huts thinking praying to the rain god would give them rain because they’re still enslaved by superstition and God, so it is the duty of the atheists of the secular world to free the rest of humanity from the darkness of God.
Carl Sagan had a book about that, it was called, “The Demon-Haunted World”. It was a best-seller, of course.
If the PLA had not marched into Tibet, still today they would be living in that demon-haunted world and serving the lamas.
Idk maybe I was too engrained in the tumblr SJW side of the conflict at the time but I really think this is an overly rosey view of things. Like, I personally remember the anti-feminism and racism coming from that side very viscerally. I know that a lot of people say that the athiest youtube channels they followed started out just doing athiesm and THEN did the anti-sjw thing but idk. I feel like the fact that that happened so many times tells me there was always something poisonous there.
I feel like this was more the case 2010 or thereafter. Youtube didn’t even exist before 2005 and I remember internet atheism BBS forums and stuff from before then.
It was always a boys club though (and also libertarian)
I think at heart, they’re just people who greatly enjoy pissing on other people’s treasured values. When Christianity was the norm, they pissed all over it with a great deal of glee. Now that the shine’s come off Christianity and social justice values have made great strides into our lives, they piss all over that, too.
Atheism/what-have-you isn’t a positive ideology, it’s a negative one. It’s not about what you should do, but what other people are doing wrong. And what’s that saying about people being wrong on the internet?
This post hit the mark.
2002 was a hell of a time to be a. Non-Christian and/or b. Against the invasion.
Christ I had forgotten all about that.
That event did get my local science fiction con, amid just gnashing of teeth from the CHUDs, to lay out specific, detailed rules about consent, taking pictures, harassment, and similar things.
Yeah, I was just posting about that somewhere the other day. Some “oh my sweet, summer child” was doubting that such a thing was ever justified and I had to step in as someone who was around when cons used to reek of authenticity and explain that it was bad, it did require public education, and that when cons started ejecting people who were walking biological weapons things improved dramatically.
It ties back in to the whole pre-Halo days, before sci fi and video games and whatnot were main streamed, when you actually could get your ass kicked for being a nerd, so the nerds tended to let almost anyone in to their spaces out of a pure “safety in numbers” attitude and close ranks to defend them when they did bad things, especially to women or minorities. This culture of protecting each other against, you know, literally everyone else was very ingrained and it took a decade or two for people to realize that no actually we can throw the sex creeps and racist wehraboos and other assorted scum out in to the street. Telling people “Use soap or fuck off” was an important part of that process.
For those who weren’t around in 2001; HALO:CE represented, at least from my perspective, a massive culture shift. The X-box, or really HALO, was wildly successful and brought gaming to the main stream in a way it had never really been before, and all other nerd shit followed. Nerds of various kinds used to be a fairly culturally isolated and mocked subculture, but suddenly everyone was in to all our shit. It was a very disorienting couple of years.
I had checked out for a couple of years by then, but I remember a couple of "rationalists " discussing it at a pub at the time. Well, avoiding discussing it.
I think of it as when internet atheism went from implicitly to explicitly anti-feminist, and every woman in the community had to define themselves as “one of the cool ones”
threatened to rape her
FYI that’s not at all what happened.
According to Rebecca, this is the elevator comment made to her:
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting and I would like to talk more, would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?
Yeah it’s kind of fuzzy because it was a while ago. But come on, it was implied. You don’t corner a woman in an elevator at 4am and then do something like that. She felt threatened, and that’s all that mattered. She posted on her blog about it and was viciously attacked by these supposedly liberated-from-the-shackles-of -Christianity humans who reacted the exact same way Christians would.
Nah I definitely didn’t say all that and am just taking Rebecca at her word but go off.
Gotta post it again, twice in one day. :citations-needed:
But I will say, @UlyssesT is right it’s a secular Calvinism. There’s no real humanism or materialism behind it, it’s not like the new atheists were supportive of a welfare state or material changes
I should clarify that there’s nothing wrong with atheism as such, especially if it leads to a Marxist humanism where we care for each other and build a world worth living in because it’s the only one we’ve got.
However there’s veins of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, etc that also foster this kind of worldly community just as there are also versions virulently opposed to the world and degrading to life in it.
Basically, reddit atheism is probably as corrosive to communistic politics as the forms of evangelical Christianity it opposes. It might produce a slightly less hostile society for certain minorities in the imperial core, but at the cost of a fig leaf for adventurism in the middle east.
